Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Remodeling, the Roman Way

When a Rome apartment is "ristruturatto" (restructured, remodeled), the teardown is a major event, mostly because of the materials used. Romans know nothing of drywall. Everything is plaster, cement, and marble, floor to ceiling. This means that when walls are torn down or moved, there are sledgehammers at work and noise reverberates throughout the building. If the remodeling coincides with your month-long rental, you're better off being gone all day. And where does the refuse go?
Not into dumpsters, which aren't used for construction materials, at least not for apartment-sized jobs. Instead, the rubble is placed into small, heavy-duty plastic bags, tied at the top, each weighing about 75 pounds (a guess). The bags--often dozens of them--are placed outside the apartment building and collected (we assume) by the contractor. In the photo above, taken outside our apartment in the San Paolo neighborhood, the bags have been arranged at curbside, and four of the bags have been placed in the street, presumably to reserve a parking place for someone, maybe a construction company vehicle. So, now you know.